The Starting Lineup
New Program at Damon’s Grill Already Impacting Sales

Damon's Grill has launched its first company-wide beverage menu since 2005 at 72 locations across the country. The chain’s concept is a contemporary, high-energy, food-focused, polished casual dining restaurant. With traditionally themed sports decor and a state-of-the-art video entertainment system, the Damon’s dining experience aims not only to allow great viewing of the “big game” but also to serve great food that is appropriate for many dining occasions. Damon’s International Inc. is based in Columbus, Ohio.

Roster of Players
The “Starting Lineup” tabletop menu features a wide selection of beers, new wines, new Margaritas, spirited teas and classic cocktails all made with premium brands. In addition to the new offerings, the menu’s design allows pages to be inserted to promote limited time and seasonal selections. “The new menu is beautiful and the new cocktails taste great,” says Kelly Clark, senior marketing manager for Damon’s International. “As a result,  we are already seeing a significant increase in alcohol percentage of sales. The menu is the final piece of the much larger BARS (Bar Awareness Results in Sales) initiative. We spent the past year focused on improving our bartender training, our bar operations and our overall awareness of this part of our business.” Damon’s Grill teamed with Houston based food and beverage marketing agency Patrick Henry Creative Promotions to create a variety of operational materials. A rollout kit arrived at locations in advance of the menu and included a bar makeover kit, complete with step-by-step instructions, a new drink recipe Rolodex, a bar operations manual and specifications guide and staff training materials.  “We really needed to embrace this part of our business and grow bar sales,” Clark says. “It’s been a huge undertaking, and it meant that we needed to address the physical space and the operation at each location. From instructions on proper drink making techniques to listing Damon’s core values, we have created tools to encourage great cocktails, great service and consistency at all of our locations.”

The Difference
More than a dipping a toe into improving the beverage aspect of Damon’s, the new program has gone all the way. “Our last program was really just an introduction of a new menu,” Clark explains. “It didn’t include a revitalization, a sales goal or a significant amount of operator focus. As a result it wasn’t wildly successful. “BARS is different. We raised our average beverage percentage 3 percent initially and ultimately 5 percent.” The BARS program began from the floor up literally. “We stripped each bar down to nothing, power washed, ordered all  new smallwares, relabeled all the wells,calibrated and cleaned the taps and soda guns, got all equipment up to full operating condition, prioritized bottle placement based on product mix and took advantage of any unused space to better merchandise beer, liquor and wine,” Clark says.

Bar Staff
Ultimately, people sell cocktails, and Damon’s has paid its people due attention. “Particularly in casual dining, the bartender position is often viewed upon as a natural career path,” Clark says. “That’s not a bad thing, but if your busser to server to bartender progression leaves out bartender training, certain levels of consistency are lost in translation. “We addressed this in the BARS program in a number of ways. We created a new Bar Operations Manual, which detailed everything from how a bartender should address a guest to what temperature a bottled beer or red wine should be served at, to how to provide responsible alcohol service. In addition to the drink recipe Rolodex that includes the recipe, instructions, how many drinks it counts for when bartenders are counting drinks and a photo of the drink when it has been made, the recipes and photos also were loaded into the restaurant point-of-sale system so that the rest of the staff could confirm what was in the drink and how it looked versus what it’s supposed to look like. It also assists in hiring. “We interviewed the best bartenders in our system and created a bartender hiring assessment so that our managers, when they were looking to replace a bartender, had a series of questions that they could score, to determine whether or not this interviewee was a worthy candidate for the position,” Clark says. “We also created tests on our eLearning platform that specifically addressed the bartenders duties and responsible alcohol service.”

Consumer Expectations
“The consumer intelligence that we receive indicated to us that we needed to upgrade our beer selections to include more and better craft and import beers while continuing to have the top selling domestic and domestic light beers,” Clark says. “With our cocktails, the research indicated that we needed to introduce some things to our menu that had emerged in the three years between menus for us namely, new flavor profiles including pomegranate, blackberry and pear. “The research directed us to slim down our vodkas to best of breed and bring in better tequila to expand our selection of Margaritas. The consumer information also indicated that we could sell more wine if we bumped up the quality of our wines and introduced a few of the newer, more popular variatals such as Pinot Noir and Riesling. “We also created a number of cocktails that include Red Bull, and we enhanced our NA selections, which customer research indicated that we should do.”